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Kids Code Mississippi Blog

The Crossroads 2017 conference presented by Infosys Foundation USA was held May 23-25, 2017 in San Francisco. Kids Code Mississippi co-founder, Randy Lynn, was among three attendees from Mississippi at the conference. In this blog series, Randy relates his impressions of the conference as a first-time attendee: Now in its third year, the Infosys Foundation USA Crossroads...

I arrived in San Francisco following about seven hours of air travel, checked in to my hotel and made my way to the Moscone West convention center. After registering, I was warmly greeted by Infosys exec Kaustav Mitra and introduced to attendees from the Alabama and California departments of education and also Creighton University professor...

The conference’s second day consisted of a full day of panel discussions from representatives of K-12 and higher education, non-profits and state governments. The sessions ran from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. with three sessions going on simultaneously during each block, making for some very tough decisions. Fortunately, the organizers recorded each session and will...

The next session focused on makerspaces, a concept which is in its infancy in Mississippi, but seeing wider adoption in California and other technology-focused states. The session was moderated by Ken Montgomery, the executive director of Design Tech High School, a tech focused public school in the San Mateo Union school district of California within...

Session 3: Decoding Diversity The third session I attended brought the issue of diversity to the forefront with a panel lineup moderated by Felix Flores of #YesWeCode. (Kids Code Mississippi partnered with #YesWeCode in 2015 to put on a hackathon for 100 minority students in Jackson in 2015.) Panelists included Antonio Tijerino, President and CEO...

My fourth session of the day began with the premier of a short video from the Infosys Foundation USA’s #WhyIMake series featuring Nick Offerman of NBC’s Parks and Recreation talking about his woodworking hobby. The session was moderated by Dorothy Jones Davis, the executive director of Nation of Makers with panelists Mark Hatch, a pioneer...

We broke for a quick lunch following session four and were joined at the table by Vandana Sikka, chairperson for Infosys Foundation USA and Code.org founder Hadi Partovi. It was so exciting to meet one of the visionaries behind the Crossroads conference and, on top of that, one of my personal heroes whose organization has...

The last two sessions I attended featured representatives from Mississippi’s CS4MS initiative. Mike Mulvihill, the Career and Technical Education Director for the Mississippi Department of Education, was joined by Holly Lavender, STEM Education Lead in the Office of Innovation at the Ohio Department of Education, and Laura Hummel, Technology and Engineering Education Advisor for Curriculum, Instruction...

During the final session of the day, Julie Jordan, director of the Research and Curriculum Unit (RCU) for Workforce Development, Vocational and Technical Education at Mississippi State University was joined by Devin Holmes of Big Sky Code Academy, a non-profit that is working to increase the tech talent pipeline in Montana. As Devin described the...

After a full day of sessions about computer science and maker education, I was ready for a mental break and some good food. Dinner was held in a huge ballroom at the Moscone West Conference Center, where a selection of light-up wearables were available at the entrance. I chose a necktie with flashing LEDs because,...